Near the center of the largest city of St. Charles County sits a quiet little plot of ground that transports a visitor to an earlier time when many of its residents were enslaved people. Samuel Keithly brought his family and property to what is today’s City of O’Fallon, in the early

a wonderful sign which was the original idea of Jim Pepper and it was constructed as an Eagle Scout Project by Jim’s grandson, Jackson Pepper.

1800s at the same time that the friends and followers of American pioneers like Daniel Boone, Jacob Zumwalt and Francis Howell were settling the area. Keithly was one of the largest slave owners in St. Charles County according to the U.S. Slave Schedules of 1850 and 1860. Among those slaves were John Rafferty and his sisters Ludy, Elsie and Lizzie according to oral history.

In 1855, a German born attorney named Arnold Krekel, purchased 320 acres of land on which he platted a town named O’Fallon, naming it after the railroad magnate John O’Fallon in hopes that it would become a stop on the westward push of progress. He set up his younger brother Nicholas as the Station Agent and Postmaster, giving him credit as the town’s founder. This created the unlikely neighbors of the Keithlys and the Krekels, with yet one common denominator. Both Samuel Keithly and Arnold Krekel owned slaves in 1860. Yet there their stories parted. Arnold Krekel, President of Missouri’s Constitutional Convention would go on to sign its’ Emancipation proclamation ending slavery in the State on January 11, 1865.

Samuel Keithly didn’t free any of his slaves. Oral tradition states that he gave the land that we call Sage Chapel Cemetery to his slaves, where they worshiped in a field of Sage. We do know that in 1881, his daughter Mahala and her husband Jasper Castlio legally transferred property that included a small church building of the African Methodist Episcopal Church on today’s Sonderen Avenue and the cemetery which lay at its southern

Preacher Jefferson Franklin Sage

terminus to three A.M.E. Trustees. At the same time there was a traveling minister with the A.ME. Church Conference named Jefferson Franklin Sage that preached along the route of today’s Interstate 70 between the city of St. Charles and further west in Jonesburg. He would preach there for many years before moving on to Kansas in the late 1890s. And by that time, there were two other black churches along today’s Sonderen Street, where a large African-American community lived.

Wishwell Baptist Church was begun in 1891 and was a plant of Hopewell Baptist Church that had begun in the 1850s south of Wentzville on the Boone’s Lick Road. Wishwell was near the creek, on the east side of Sonderen, close to Sage Chapel Church. The other African-American Church was Craven’s Methodist, begun in 1871, near the corner of Elm and Sonderen. Next to Craven’s, on the corner, was the town’s African-American school, and across the street was the “Colored Odd Fellow’s” lodge that met in Willis Thornhill’s house until Henry Obrecht purchased the property in 1910. All of these lay on today’s Sonderen Avenue, which ran north to south from the Wabash Railroad to Sage Chapel Cemetery near the former Keithly plantation. This was also the dividing line between the property of the Krekel Addition and the former Keithly’s until 1951 and the City’s annexation of property. This was the line for segregation.

Even though all three of these African-American Churches are no longer standing, and the buildings that once housed the black school and the Odd-Fellows lodge are largely

O’Fallon residents

remodeled, Sage Chapel Cemetery still exists. Significant in today’s world where such places are so often lost and forgotten. A peaceful and quiet testament to a difficult time and such families as Hayden, White, Edwards, Thomas, Rafferty and Ball. While many of the community of African Americans left O’Fallon in the late 1950s and early 1960s in search of better job opportunities for their families, some remained. And while many of Sage Chapel’s residents died living in St. Charles, St. Louis or even as far as New Orleans, they were brought home to Sage Chapel when they passed. Eventually all three churches would use Sage Chapel to bury their families.

Today the City of O’Fallon sees that the grass is cut, trees cut and that Sage Chapel is well maintained. The City truly understands that this place has a collective memory that is an integral part of its’ City’s rich history. Its’ Historic Preservation Commission shares in this mission and is working to see that Sage Chapel is preserved for future generations.

Ceremony for the laying of a new memorial for Veteran Howard Morris

Members of the community are working to see it placed on the National Register of Historic places. One of the largest cities in Missouri, O’Fallon is setting an example of how to honor its history, even the more difficult stories. This in turn leads to a greater understanding and a richer dialogue for everyone. Thank you O’Fallon, Missouri, a great place to live!

Today research tells us that Sage Chapel Cemetery has 38 marked burials, yet is estimated to have an 115 grave sites on this small one acre which lies next to O’Fallon’s Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5077 at 8500 Veterans Memorial Parkway in O’Fallon, Missouri. It is estimated that nearly twenty percent of its burials were former slaves. To watch a video by O’Fallon’s Communications about Sage Chapel Cemetery CLICK HERE.

In 1846, when the first public school Board was created, and German born Arnold Krekel was a director, public education was only for white students. As plans for public schools took shape, there was a count of school age children made, which unfortunately did not include colored children. It was illegal to educate blacks under Missouri Law in 1847. It wasn’t until after Missouri’s Emancipation of its slaves on January 11, 1865 that things changed. In 1866, Jacob Weston was hired by the public school board and paid $20.00, in part payment, to teach the colored children in St. Charles. William Royce, began to collect subscriptions to build a public colored school, for the 167 colored children. The school board announced that school would start in December 1867. The African Church at Second and Pike Streets served as a school house and received $5 a month rent for that. By 1870, plans were being made to purchase the church.

At that same time, the Franklin School building was purchased from St. Louis University. For $3,500 the school board purchased everything, even the benches, in the school house that had been serving as a Catholic school for the St. Charles Borremeo parish since 1855 when it had been built. The colored school population was divided between the African Church and the Blue Ville School at Gallaher and Olive. In 1871, The colored Methodist Church was then purchased for $1250. In 1897, all colored children were being sent to what was Lincoln School at Second and Pike.

It wasn’t until 1901, that H.H. Peck spoke up about giving the African-American children, of which there were 80 at this time, a full day’s education. He also wanted another teacher since there were so many students, but that was denied. Instead on October 7, 1902 the school district opened the Franklin School to relieve the overcrowding at

Franklin School’s new addition in 1910

Lincoln School. It wasn’t until 1910 that the first mention of graduation exercises. In 1914, Lincoln was the white school and Franklin was all black, and an addition was built to accommodate all the former black Lincoln School students. The addition was made at a cost of $2,674. In 1921, the State Superintendent of Schools suggested that two years of high school be added. Improvements of more rooms at a cost of $11, 418.00 was done at this time as well. And in 1922, the first diploma was awarded to Clarence Thomas Shelton.

In 1925, the front of the school was modernized to today’s appearance. A lot was purchased for $7,500 to provide a playground for the students. In 1931, a third year was added to the high school, and in 1932 a fourth year was added. By this time, bus transportation covering 60-80 miles a day in its route, to bring African-American students from Jonesburg, Warrenton, Wright City, Wentzville and O’Fallon. It was great event when in June of 1933, Franklin School proudly graduated ten students from its four-year high school. In 1938, a gymnasium was built on the south side of the school building, where the former George Hellrich home had been, at the cost of $17,980.00. Another house on Hellrich’s property served as the Home Economics building.

Integration came to Missouri’s schools in 1954, and the lower grades were the first to be racially integrated. An era came to an end on a Thursday evening in June, the 2nd, in 1955 with the last graduation of Franklin High School. Hundreds of students from African-American communities in Warren, Lincoln, and St. Charles Counties had gained that important High School education in this building. Portions of its halls had served students since 1855, with a majority of its life as an all-black school. Student Mary Stephenson’s family had moved to O’Fallon from a farm in St. Paul, to attend school. She would pass school buildings that were a block from her home, to ride an early morning bus, to receive a high school education. Dedicated teachers, used all the materials they could find, and taught several different subjects. They insisted upon learning and the importance of education. This was a place that instilled pride in hundreds of former students that passed through its hallways. This sense of pride can still be seen today in the homes of these families. Their pride in their education still echoes in the hallways, and in their discussions with the school board. For more information about the plans for the former Franklin School, which is being sold, please contact the City of St. Charles School District.

Information for this post came from the National Register Listing for the Frenchtown District and One Hundred years of Negro Education in St. Charles, Missouri by Stephen Blackhurst, Jr..

The third in a continuing series on the Krekel family of O’Fallon: “In the fall of the year 1832 we sailed from Bremen. It took about three months, we landed at New York, on the ship Isabella, on November 1st, 1832. We went up the Hudson River to Albany, and from Albany to Erie by canal. Intending to go to Cleveland Ohio from there and to Missouri…The voyage across the Ocean took 9 weeks, the overland trip from Erie to Pittsburgh took about 3 weeks …During the high water of June 1844 I was working for Steven Hancock who lived in Hancock’s Bottom in a double log house later owned by the Kunsels [Kuenzel] next to Anton Reuther’s farm. (Nicholas Krekel to his daughter Bertha Krekel)…

Germans began arriving in Missouri in 1830 due to a small book written and published by Gottfried Duden called A Report on a Journey to the Western States of North America. Nicholas’ father personally knew Duden and first settled adjoining a parcel of his land when the family arrived in Missouri. The father settled his motherless family at the far southwestern corner of St. Charles County near Dutzow. There the children grew up near the village and were members of the Catholic church known as St. Peter and Paul, now St. Vincent de Paul. It sits atop the hillside not far from his childhood home.

Nicholas Krekel to his daughter Bertha Krekel: Wilhelmina Moritz and I were married

Wilhelmina Moritz Krekel

August 15, 1857 at St. Louis coming to O’Fallon Missouri shortly after, where I had built a home, having come there on August 6, 1856”.

Nicholas Krekel was an enterprising young man, building a home to bring his young wife to within a year. Wilhelmina “Mena” Moritz was the daughter of Casper and Sophie Moritz. Born in Bielefeld, Germany, July 17, 1838, she and her family came to America by way of New Orleans during the 1850s, and her family was living in Florissant then. This was a strong Catholic community that had begun coming to America in 1833, and most likely had many families that had connections all the way back to Germany.

The Krekel’s first child was a daughter who they named Emma, born in 1858. Nicholas had been appointed Stationmaster on the North Missouri Railroad* which began in 1851. Soon after Nicholas was appointed Postmaster of O’Fallon on February 11, 1859. That Christmas their next daughter Bertha was born. And by 1860, he was well on his way to establishing himself as a merchant and running the town’s new Post Office. A young 17 year-old German girl from Hannover named Donetta Kipp was a servant in their home.

In 1861, Nicholas had joined the Union Army, and was serving in Missouri’s Home Guard, in Captain Newstadter’s Company H, as a Private. His brother Arnold, who was a Lt. Colonel in the Home Guard, was not well liked either by some of the Krekel family’s neighbors, and this story which was shared in the Keithley family papers at the St. Charles County Historical Society and recounts a day in the life of O’Fallon during the Civil War: “They marched in front of it, on the road that ran past the house, and they did this regular patrol almost every day.” The Keithley farm was “on the main road” (today’s Main Street). They were known as Krekel’s “Deutsch” and “southern sympathizers like the Keithleys had very little respect. Never the less “Krekel was and there were more Union sympathizers in the O’Fallon area than Southern. He had the perfect right to march his contingent, up and down certain roads. Virtually every morning they did that march.” We are not sure which Krekel brother Julia Darst is sharing a story about since Nicholas held the rank of Private, and Arnold attained Lt. Colonel. She is either elevating one brother or demoting the other!

One day, Aunt Duck (Julia Darst) had gone upstairs to make the beds, and she looked out the window and saw Krekel’s army marching down what they considered “their road” and with a wicked impulse and not thinking she raised the window and yelled “Hooray for Jeff Davis”! Well of course the soldiers all looked up to see who would have the nerve to say such a thing! Grandmother Keithley heard and came running. She was terrified that Krekel would be furious and come for the only male resident in the Keithley home. Of course, they didn’t stop. Apparently soon all was forgotten.

“O’Fallon, thirty-three miles from St. Louis, is a small town, first settled in 1856. It has a population of about 100. It has two dry goods and a grocery store, a hotel, boarding house, steam flour mill, brick yard, broom factory, depot and stock yard, post office and express office. Farmers do well here, and there is a good chance for all kinds of manufacturers.” (http://www.ofallonmohistory.org/HistoryPage4.html) After the close of the Civil War, O’Fallon would grow rapidly around the stately two-story home of the Krekel family. Today the Krekel home is being renovated and brought to life once again by the young local family of Jason and Jessica Orf, who will soon be opening their new business, with all the former glory that would make Nicholas Krekel himself proud.

*The History of St. Charles, Montgomery and Warren Counties” was first published in the 1870s when the North Missouri Railroad had become part of the St. Louis, Kansas City and Northern Railroad, just as the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific had, which is the name the County history gives to the O’Fallon Railroad. Both these railroads became part of the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific, which ultimately became the Wabash Railroad System in 1889.

I would like to thank John Griesenauer and all of the members of the Krekel family who have been sharing their personal family history, Jason and Jessica Orf for allowing me to share their progress, and Jim Frain with his wonderful collection of O’Fallon photos.

In the decade of the 1830s alone over 120,000 Germans immigrated to America, and one-third of those settled in Missouri. Those are the emigrants that made it. Thousands would not survive the journey at sea or the difficult overland trek westward.

Nicholas Krekel: “In the fall of the year 1832 we sailed from Bremen. It took about three months, we landed at New York, went up the Hudson River to Albany, and from Albany to Erie by canal. Intending to go to Cleveland Ohio from there and to Missouri. On arriving at Erie, there was so much ice in the lake that we could not make the trip, so we went overland to Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, a distance of 160 miles. Mother, my sister Katherine (11 years), myself (Nicholas Krekel) rode in the wagon. Father, my three oldest brothers, Godfred [sic], Arnold and Frank walked. On this overland trip my mother took cold which continued to get worse when coming down the Ohio River, so we landed at Louisville, Kentucky to get medical assistance and religious consolation. She died there on December 14, 1832 and was also buried there. Three years later Arnold went there to find his mother’s grave but the city had been built beyond it. The voyage across the Ocean took 9 weeks, the overland trip from Erie to Pittsburgh took about 3 weeks. After her burial we continued our way to St. Louis. On arriving there we put up at the William Tell house on Main Street, a two story stone building.”

Of the forty thousand immigrants that arrived in Missouri in the ’30s, at least one-fourth of those Germans chose the city of St. Louis. The city’s population grew from approximately 15,000 to 35,000, meaning that half of that growth was by Germans alone. The city’s Germans were often affluent and educated, supporting six German newspapers. The sound of German voices filled the air and it was said one could spend the day and never hear a word of English.

“From there we came to St. Charles and were there during the Christmas holidays and New Year. A man from the western part of the county named Cashew and his son named Jackson were there with a team of four horses having been to St. Louis. They took us to our new home. While looking about for a location we stopped with a man named Bonet, a bachelor that made spinning wheels (the place was later owned by the Braehus family) he showed my father a piece of land owned by the government on which a man named Wood had built a log house. After looking at the land which was covered with heavy timber my father went to St. Louis where the land office was and bought it for the sum of $__for ____ acres. He paid the man Wood $9 for the log cabin that was on it, he seemed well paid and settled further towards Warren County”

Warren County had been carved out of Montgomery County in 1833. St. Charles County which had been created out of the St. Charles District of the Louisiana Territory in 1812 had stretched to the Pacific Ocean until the counties like Montgomery and Franklin were created in 1818. At least 30,000 German immigrants chose to go west in the 1830s, settling in St. Charles, Warren, Franklin and Gasconade counties. They settled along the Missouri River valley creating the towns of Dutzow, Dortmund and Hamburg. They helped the town of Washington grow and become a German town. They turned The Philadelphia Settlement Society into the German town of Hermann.

“The name of the vessel we came to America in was Isabella. Two years later Anton Hoester’s father and family came over in the same vessel. In the year 1835 it was wrecked at sea. Before leaving Europe my father had decided to settle in this neighborhood. A criminal Judge named Duden with whom my father was personally acquainted had come to America several years previous and wrote such favorable letters to Europe that my [father] thought well of this country”

In 1829, Gottfried Duden published A Report on a Journey to the Western States of North America and a Stay Along the Missouri (During the years 1824, ’25,’26., 1827). Born in Remscheid in 1789, the young attorney had lived with the farmer Jacob Haun, even though he had purchased a large parcel of land himself. Observing the life of the “American farmer” and describing the life of Missouri’s earliest residents Duden described a place where freedom and opportunity were almost taken for granted, causing some Germans to decry Duden’s description as an impossible fairy tale.

“On our way there through St. Charles County we passed prairie lands that now are fine farms, but we were under the impression that where no trees grew, no vegetables would grow. So we settled in the dense forest and it took several years of hard labor to clear the land, burn the logs and the brush. Many large walnut trees were cut and burned.”

Duden’s farm was approximately 50 miles west of St. Louis on the eastern edge of Warren County adjoining St. Charles County, near the Missouri River. In 1832, a group of Germans often referred to as “the Berlin Society” made the first German settlement in Missouri when a town named Dutzow was established here. The village is named after the former estate in Germany of its founder, Johann Wilhelm Bock and adjoins Duden’s farm to the south.

“In sight of our home in Germany was the home of Carl Deus. Carl’s father was a brewer, distiller and coal merchant. The family was quite wealthy and of high social class.”

The conditions in Germany were desperate following the Napoleonic War, leading to overpopulation and famine. Revolutions were stirring among the students, and hundreds of such books as Duden’s were being written about Russia, Brazil, and England as places to immigrate to.

“In the year 1832 when Carl’s father heard that our family intended going to America he asked my father to wait until ’34 when there was a colony coming over, but my father was of a disposition not inclined to subject himself to anothers’ dictation so came alone with his family”

The Giessen Emigration Societywas founded by friends of the Krekel family, Paul Follenius and Friedrich Muench, whose farms adjoined Duden’s to the north. Their arrival in Missouri in July and August of 1834 brought over 500 Germans who settled all over St. Charles County, including St. Paul, Cottleville and St. Charles. By 1850 St. Charles County was over 50% German with many of them being established second generation families.

Next: Life of a German Immigrant Family

This is the voice of Nicholas Krekel and the story as told to his daughter Bertha Krekel. He was the founder of O’Fallon, Missouri, born in Germany on August 30, 1825 and emigrated with his family to America in 1832. The story was shared in his final years just shortly before his death. The journal has been graciously shared with me by a descendant, John Griesenauer. The author extends her utmost appreciation for allowing her to share this wonderful piece of family history.

On January 11, 1865, Arnold Krekel signed the Missouri Constitutional Conventions Proclamation ending slavery here in Missouri. Krekel, was born in Germany in 1815, served as President of Missouri’s Constitutional Convention when slavery was abolished in Missouri on January 11, 1865. He emigrated with his family to Dutzow, Missouri in November of 1832. The young man moved to St. Charles and attended the St. Charles College where he studied law. He worked as a surveyor and became a Justice of the Peace as well. In 1844 he graduated the bar and opened his law office. Krekel became the St. Charles County and city attorney from 1846 to 1850. He was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in 1852. In 1855, he purchased 320 acres of land, and platted the town of O’Fallon. There his brother Nicholas Krekel, built the first house, and established the town’s Post Office. They established O’Fallon as a town on the Wabash Railroad, with Nicholas the agent.

Arnold Krekel was editor of the St. Charles German newspaper, Der Demokrat from 1850 until 1864, and when the Civil War began, Krekel served in the Union Army, as Lt. Colonel of a regiment of Missouri volunteers. When the Civil War began, Missouri’s plans for gradual emancipation infuriated the Radical Republicans, who wanted slavery abolished immediately. They took their grievances to Lincoln, who refused to take sides in Missouri’s politics, which infuriated them even more. Provisional Governor Gamble offered to resign, but the First Constitutional Convention would not accept it. Gamble died in office on 31 January 1864. Missouri’s radicals arranged for elections and for a new Constitutional Convention in November 1864, where they elected Thomas C. Fletcher Missouri governor.

Constitutional Convention of 1865

Arnold Krekel, a Democrat, was elected President of the new Constitutional Convention that met in the Mercantile Library in St. Louis on January 6, 1865. On January 11, 1865 the convention, by a 60 to 4 vote, abolished slavery in the state with no compensation for slave owners. A month later the convention also adopted the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution to abolish slavery throughout the U.S..

On March 6, 1865, Krekel was nominated by President Lincoln to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, and confirmed on March 9, 1865. Krekel later taught law at the University of Missouri Law School in Columbia from 1872 to 1875, and continued to as a Judge for the Court until his retirement on June 9, 1888.

When Saint Charles County Would Be the Last to Know of War

In 1812, over two hundred years ago, those living here in Saint Charles, in the Saint Charles District of the Territory of Louisiana did not know that the United States had just officially gone to war. The Territory in 1812 was was virtually uncharted, stretching all the way to the west from the Mississippi and everything to the north of the Missouri. Without today’s internet, blogs and tweets, the residents were totally unaware that the House of Representatives had hotly debated the issue (behind closed doors) ending with what would become the closest vote for war in our Nation’s entire history. For most of the United States, this second war with the British would be over the issues of trade embargoes and the impressment, the forced service of over 10,000 of our men into the British Navy. These issues were of no matter here.

For those living here on the frontier this was the “Indian War” which had really begun with the purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1804. The British used the Indian tribes, inciting them to slaughter because of our expansionist activities. Quite a deal had been cut for the purchase because France needed the money for their fight with the British. Here we were far outnumbered by the Indian tribes.

In June of 1805, the Federal government established Fort Bellefontaine, the first American fort west of the Mississippi River. A young man named George Sibley served as the factor’s assistant. John Johnson from Tennessee, an avowed Indian hater, settled his family east of Portage des Sioux, about fifteen miles from Saint Charles. The area was growing with families like Boone and Zumwalt, mixing with the earlier French and Spanish, like Saucier and Pujols.

In 1808 General William Clark, had asked for volunteers to accompany him and the Militia, under the command of Eli B. Clemson, to establish a fort and factory. Young Nathan Boone who worked with James Morrison at the Boone’s Lick knew the region well would become their overland guide on what would become the Boone’s Lick road. The fort’s site had been chosen by Lewis and Clark years before. Young George Sibley became the administrator, known as the “factor”, as the government hoped this would further friendly relations with the Osage, the largest tribe. Nathan Boone negotiated a Treaty with the Osage there which would cede nearly 200 square miles of land between the Missouri and Arkansas River to the United States which soon became “all claims to land north of the Missouri River” another 20 million acres, for an overall total of 50 million acres. The U.S. Government thought this Treaty would put an end to all of our Indian problems.

But much more would be needed to co-exist with the Native Americans. KaKaGiChe, a Sauk warrior had killed a trader at Portage des Sioux, Antoine Le Page. Two Iowa braves, White Cloud and Mera Naute killed Joseph Thibault and Joseph Marechel. In November, Governor Lewis gave Orders for 370 men to organize at St. Charles. They were to arm and equip for actual service, to be the militia of the Territory of Louisiana. Each officer of that detachment was ordered to furnish himself with a sword, uniform coat and hat; non-commissioned officers were to furnish themselves with a good rifle, tomahawk, scalping knife, horn and pouch, 24 rounds of ammunition, a blanket and a knapsack. All of this created a false sense of peace, while the threat of attack was within a half day’s ride from St. Charles.

Settlement in the territory was sparse, and in clusters. Attacks by the Sauk, Fox, Potowatomis and Iowa increased. They stole horses from the settlers and murdered four members of Stephen Cole’s party when they set out to retrieve them. When St. Charles was incorporated in 1809 (the same year as St. Louis) the population of the entire Territory was 20,845 with just over 3,500 residing in our District, and a few hundred in St. Charles.

Indian attacks were increasing. A newspaper report read “The family of Mr. Neal was killed in the district of St. Charles on the bank of the Mississippi by a party of unknown Indians; it was believed that the mischief was done by a party of Illinois … I saw the bodies, nine in number, principally females. “ Immediately after… Governor Howard sent orders to Col. Kibbe in St. Charles, who commanded the St. Charles Militia to call out the portion of the men he had held in reserve, to march at a moments notice.” These troops were waiting for just such a moment.

On the 3rd of March in1812, Governor Howard acting on his own authority ordered a company of mounted riflemen raised, for 3 months, all from the District of St. Charles to be put under the command of Capt. Nathan Boone. Then he sought authorization for his actions from the President Madison. In May, word came “that a Federal Commission has come for Nathan Boone, as Captain, for a company of Rangers to be raised for 12 months.” Many of those finishing their 3 months of service eagerly rejoined for another 12. George Huffman’s son, Peter, served in Nathan Boone’s Militia, which officially was called the St.Charles Mountain Men. They earned 75c a day when serving on foot, and $1 when mounted. Boone’s log book refers to them as “Minute men.”

War was official on June 18, 1812. Callaway’s Rangers included settlers from Howell’s Prairie, Pond Fort, Femme Osage and the Boone Settlement. Companies were raised by James Musick at Black Walnut, Robert Spencer at Dardenne, John Weldon of Dardenne Prairie, Benjamin Howell out on Howell’s Prairie, and Christopher Clark in Troy. At St. Charles the settlers gathered at Griffith’s farm, Johnson’s farm at Portage des Sioux, Zumwalt’s Fort (O’Fallon), Kountz’s Fort (Cottleville), and waited. Where ever they could, settlers created forts out of their homesteads or erected house forts. Where there were several families, cabins were erected and stockades connected them, with wells dug, protecting their livestock as well.

In August, Winnebagos, Ioways, and Ottos joined nearly 100 Sauk Indians with the British above Fort Mason, and stole horses. A company of Rangers and Cavalry commanded by Capt. Alexander McNair were at Fort Mason at the time. With troops commanded by Col. Nathan Boone,together they pursued the thieves that had made their way to an island on the Mississippi near Portage des Sioux, and were about 200 yards out. When Boone and McNair caught up with them, they fled to the Island’s interior. The troop’s horses were too fatigued to swim, but McNair and his Rangers swam over and recaptured the stolen horses, after they had marched 60 miles that day.

In September, 100 Sioux attacked a settler and his wife, stole their horses and cow, which they slaughtered. Captains Musick and Price pursued the attackers in their canoes. There were said to be at least 70 of them. They recaptured the stolen beef. Then in October, the Van Burkleo family was attacked near Black Walnut. A member of the Militia, Van Burkleo would later serve as an interpreter at the Treaty at Portage des Sioux when the War ended.

The settlers were constantly being attacked. Men were torn between serving in the Militia and protecting their families. Pleas were made to the Federal government, who the settlers did not believe were doing enough to protect them. Its location had made Saint Charles a passageway for all the Indian nations to the north and west, who had hunted this area for years prior to the arrival of the white man. Yet settlement was so scattered that communications were difficult…

Great history of everything you ever wanted to know about the Zumwalt family (German) when they came, who they came with and where they settled! Then it shares the history of the Zumwalt home and the Heald House!

This great little book also acknowledges all of the hard work of Jessie Francis, Raleigh Jessup, Joe Harl, Charlie Brunjes and Mayor Paul Renaud did to bring the place back to life. And it is through the wonderful work of the O’Fallon Community Foundation that the Fort is there today. Today it is part of the wonderful Parks and Recreation Department of the great City of O’Fallon. Tours are available and the historic site is open on the the second and fourth Sunday from May to September. Please call 636-379-5614 for more information.

This is the story of a St. Charles County slave that risked his life to “do the right thing” and has been famously immortalized in the Emancipation Memorial, also known as the Freedman’s Memorial and sometimes referred to as the “Lincoln Memorial”, a monument in Washington, D.C..

Born in Virginia, in 1816, Archer Alexander was a mulatto son of Salley, a slave on Reid’s farm. When he was six years old, he leaves the Reid farm and moves to the Smith farm ith his mother. The next year, Mr. Smith died, and his widow marries David Farrell, and Salley becomes the property of Ferrell in Widow Smith’s dowry. Salley also gets married, as is slave custom, by jumping the broom, with Aleck Alexander. With that, Archer is indentured to the Alexander family. A few years later, in 1828 or 9, the Alexander family moves to Missouri, but soon returns to Virginia, and is sold to the Ferrell family. Buying and selling of property continues, and Archer first is sold to Louis Yosti, then to Richard Pitman, son of David Pitman, in St. Charles County.

He had been sold because when he was young, he was considered “too uppity” and was sold as punishment. This separates him from his own family forever. When asked at the end of his life if he still remembered his mother, Archer replied, “Yes, sir, I remembers her like yesterday. Seems like I never forgets her, nohow. ‘Specially when trouble comes, and I’ve had a heap of that” Here, at the Pitman farm Archer meets Louisa, and they raise 10 children.

In February of 1863, Archer becomes one of America’s heroes, when he informs the Union Troops in St. Charles County that the Railroad bridge has been tampered with and undermined so that it will collapse as soon as a train passes. With this bold action, Alexander ran under the cover of darkness, five miles to inform the Union troops. Krekel’s “Dutch”- so called because they were German emigrants – oversaw guarding the Peruque Creek bridge, just west of O’Fallon. Archer Alexander is suspected of having alerted and of somehow betraying this information when the bridge did not collapse! Knowing that he was in mortal danger, Archer manages to escape and flee to St. Louis.

“Under the best of circumstances, the best condition of slavery was worse than the worst condition of freedom—I doubt if a man or woman could be found who would exchange freedom, such as it is, for the old relation under the best master that ever lived” He thinks to himself, “Go for your freedom, ef you dies for it”. Archer Alexander.

Slave-catchers captured Archer and took him to a boarding house to spend the night before being taken to a new master in the South, as punishment for his actions. Instead of settling for a continued life of slavery, Alexander miraculously climbed out of a high window and avoids a ravenous dog long enough to slip away from his pursuers. His desire for freedom allows him to reach St. Louis and secure his freedom.

Archer’s son Thomas had escaped and joined the U.S. Colored Troops, recruited under German immigrant George Senden, on Main Street in St. Charles. He would later die “in action” during the Civil War. Disease which took a huge toll on soldiers, especially the Colored Troops because of the conditions that they lived under. Archer was grieved but proud saying “I couldn’t do it myself,” “but I thank the Lord my boy did it.”

In St. Louis, Archer meets Abigail Adams Eliot in a butcher shop. She’s the wife of a Unitarian minister named William Greenleaf Eliot. Eliot hires Archer to be his gardener. When he discovers Alexander’s story, the minister obtained an order of protection for Archer and attempts to purchase his freedom. Eliot helps Archer write a letter so that Archer can buy his freedom, because in 1847, Missouri’s laws had made it illegal to teach a slave to read or write. Eliot goes to Judge Barton Bates and offers him $600 for Archer Alexander.

Soon, however, slave catchers again attempted to abduct Alexander from the Eliot property- where he is under an order of protection. Three men, slave catchers came to the property and threatened Alexander’s life with pistols and daggers, cruelly beat him with clubs, knocked him down, stamped upon and handcuffed him, dragged him to a wagon and carried him to jail.

Eliot arranges to have Archer’s captors arrested on a military arrest warrant because what they had done was illegal, as Alexander was still under the Order of Protection. The slave-catchers, upon learning of their impending arrests, hastily flee St. Louis without Alexander. Eliot has negotiated for Alexander’s release and Alexander is freed once again when Captain Dwight issues orders for the Jail to do so.

Eliot is able then to obtain a full order of protection. But the political situation remains volatile. Though President Lincoln had issued the ­Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, it did not apply to slave-holding border states. In Missouri, the “peculiar institution” stood until January 11,1865, when Missouri’s Constitutional Convention under the leadership of Arnold Krekel, signed it.

When he’d recuperated sufficiently to travel, Alexander went by steamboat to Alton, Illinois, a free state. There he worked as a farmhand, saved his wages and waited. Six months later, Alexander returned to Eliot and deposited $120 in the ­Provident Savings Bank. It was a large sum as over the same period, a Union private would only have earned $78 at best.

He then sent word to Louisa, whose freedom he hoped to purchase. He wrote a letter to her owner. “My dear husband,”Louisa wrote back. “I received your letter yesterday, and lost no time in asking Mr. Jim if he would sell me, and what he would take for me. He flew at me, and said I would never get free only at the point of the [bayonet], and there was no use in my ever speaking to him any more about it. I don’t see how I can ever get away except you get soldiers to take me from the house, as he is watching me night and day.”

Eliot read Alexander the letter. He worried that Louisa, having sought to leave, might now be endangered. “Her life wasn’t safe if they got mad at her.” But Alexander had a back-up plan: Wary of writing again, Alexander arranges for his wife and as many children as possible to escape. William Eliot, sensing slavery’s imminent demise, cautioned Archer that the few months of freedom might not be worth the risks of flight.

On a moonlit night, Louisa and Nellie, the couple’s young daughter, climbed into an ­ox-drawn cart and hid beneath the corn shucks. A horseman soon rode by. He grilled the farmer: “Have you seen Louisa and Nellie?” “Yes, I saw them at the crossing, as I came along, standing, and looking scared-like, as if they were waiting for somebody,” the farmer coolly replied. “But I have not seen them since.” Mother and daughter arrived at Eliot’s before dawn. Alexander paid the German farmer $20. Soon they were reunited with two more daughters.

After the war finally ended, Eliza began to yearn for her former belongings. She went to her former master to retrieve them, and suddenly took ill. She died within two days. Her belongings were sent to St. Louis to Archer. Archer eventually remarried to a slave who also knew how to speak German.

President Abraham Lincoln and a freed African-American slave are depicted in a statue commemorating the Emancipation Proclamation in Washington D.C., with the photo of the slave based on Archer Alexander. About 1870, Eliot arranged for Alexander to be photographed. Eliot mailed the images to Italy, where artist Thomas Ball was sculpting a monument to Lincoln and emancipation. The funding for the memorial started when a woman in Virginia, Charlotte Scott, donated the first $5 she earned as a free woman for a monument honoring Lincoln’s proclamation. That started a fundraising effort among newly freed people that raised $16,242 — enough to build a memorial. The statue now sits in Washington‘s Lincoln Park and depicts Lincoln standing above a kneeling freed man holding broken chains.

Originally the slave was to be wearing a Union Cap and thanking Lincoln. The statue has been criticized as paternalistic, reflecting views of its time. Still, it remains significant as one of the first monuments to Lincoln funded entirely by formerly enslaved people. The freed man has the face of Archer Alexander. Neither Eliot nor Alexander attended the monument’s dedication in April 1876, and Alexander never saw the memorial for himself. Alexander died in 1879 and, according to Eliot’s account, “his last words were a prayer of thanksgiving that he died in freedom.”
Watch O’Fallon Matters story on Archer Alexander https://youtu.be/4FfKhZRj7E0

The author used Crossroads by Steve Ehlmann, The Story of Archer Alexander by William G. Eliot, and The Rattling of the Chains by Errol D. Alexander for this article.